Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is associated with fibrosis, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and end-stage liver disease. In the normal liver, fibronectin plays crucial roles in various cellular functions, including cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation. Increased expression of fibronectin is associated with areas of physiological or pathological tissue remodeling, including wound healing and tissue repair. The aim of the current study was to correlate the cellular fibronectin expression level in peripheral blood fibrocytes of chronic HCV patients with the severity of liver fibrosis as detected by liver biopsy.
Methods: The present study was conducted on 20 fibrotic liver cases with detectable HCV RNA, 10 HCV cirrhotic liver cases, and 10 control subjects of matched age and sex. Cellular fibronectin RNA was detected by PCR.
Results: The mean level of cellular fibronectin expression in cases with liver fibrosis was significantly higher than the corresponding level in cases with liver cirrhosis (p = 0.019). Control individuals did not express cellular fibronectin. There was also a significant correlation between the Metavir score and cellular fibronectin RNA, APRI, and FIB-4 scores. However, based on the area under the curve (AUC) values, cellular fibronectin showed a lower diagnostic performance than APRI and FIB-4 scores.
Conclusions: Cellular fibronectin RNA showed satisfactory reproducibility and could be used to differentiate HCV fibrotic liver (F1-F3) and HCV cirrhotic liver (F4) from normal liver (F0).
Keywords: APRI; FIB-4; Fibronectin; hepatitis C virus; liver fibrosis.